Book categories

Instrumentation and Measurement in Electrical Engineering

by Roman Malaric

2011

The inclusion of an electrical measurement course in the undergraduate curriculum of electrical engineering is important in forming the technical and scientific knowledge of future electrical engineers. This book explains the basic measurement techniques, instruments, and methods used in everyday practice. It covers in detail both analogue and digital instruments, measurements errors and uncertainty, instrument transformers, bridges, amplifiers, oscilloscopes, data acquisition, sensors, instrument controls and measurement systems. The reader will learn how to apply the most appropriate measurement method and instrument for a particular application, and how to assemble the measurement system from physical quantity to the digital data in a computer. The book is primarily intended to cover...

Digital Signal Processing Laboratory

LabVIEW-Based FPGA Implementation

by Nasser Kehtarnavaz and Sidharth Mahotra

2010

Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) are increasingly becoming the platform of choice to implement DSP algorithms. This book is designed to allow DSP students or DSP engineers to achieve FPGA implementation of DSP algorithms in a one-semester DSP laboratory course or in a short design cycle time based on the LabVIEW FPGA Module. Features: - The first DSP laboratory book that uses the FPGA platform instead of the DSP platform for implementation of DSP algorithms - Incorporating introductions to LabVIEW and VHDL - Lab experiments covering FPGA implementation of basic DSP topics including convolution, digital filtering, fixed-point data representation, adaptive filtering, frequency domain processing - Hardware FPGA implementation applications including wavelet transform, software-de...

Modulated Measurement and Engineering Systems for Microwave Power Transistors

Characterisation and Linearisation of Nonlinear Microwave Devices for Wireless Communication Systems

by Muhammad Akmal Chaudhary, Ph.D.

2019

The complexity requirements of future wireless communication systems now indeed demand a more general theoretically robust design methodology for nonlinear circuits, such as the power amplifiers. The present design methodology for nonlinear Radio Frequency components and circuits has become a key hindrance in the evaluation, development and testing of modern communication systems. The fundamental nature of this engineering challenge makes it highly unlikely to be addressed within the competitive Radio Frequency industry with short-term profitability, time to market and risk aversion considerations.The book, therefore, includes developing advanced waveform measurement setups, multi-tone measurement techniques, characterization and modelling of nonlinear distortion in microwave power transis...

TCP/IP - The Ultimate Protocol Guide

Volume 1 - Data Delivery and Routing

by Philip M. Miller

2009

The book provides a complete guide to the protocols that comprise the Internet Protocol Suite, more commonly referred to as TCP/IP. The work assumes no prior knowledge of TCP/IP and only a rudimentary understanding of LAN/WAN access methods. The book is split into a number of sections; the manner in which data is transported between systems, routing principles and protocols, applications and services, security, and Wide Area communications. Each section builds on the last in a tutorial manner and describes the protocols in detail so serving as a reference for students and networking professionals of all levels. Volume I - Data Delivery & Routing Section A: Introduction Section B: The Internet Protocol Section C: Reliable and Unreliable Data Delivery Section D: Quality of Service ...

Moisture Control and Insulation Systems in Buildings, Chilled Water Pipes and Underground Pipes

A Guide for Architects, Engineers, Contractors, Facility Managers, Construction Professionals and Homeowners

by William A. Lotz (author) and Joseph M. Hough (editor)

2021

This book shows you one thing: How to deal with moisture problems in buildings and their components: Roofs, walls, attics, heating/ventilation/air conditioning systems, etc.; as well as how to deal with moisture problems in insulated chilled water pipes and underground pipes. You'll discover the basics of moisture control in an easy-to-understand manner through real-life moisture problems that the author himself has been through, and managed to solve. Not only does Mr. William A. Lotz, P.E. write about his extensive moisture control experience with 2000 buildings and projects, but also convey the moisture control facts in a forthright, solution-oriented, jargon-free language. This language can be grasped by all building professionals: Architects, engineers, builders, facility managers, con...

The Antikythera Mechanism

The Story Behind the Genius of the Greek Computer and its Demise

by Evaggelos G. Vallianatos

2021

In Antikythera Mechanism: The Story Behind the Genius of the Greek Computer and Its Demise, Evaggelos G. Vallianatos, historian and ecopolitical theorist, shows that after the conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great in the late fourth century BCE, the Greeks, especially in Egypt, reached unprecedented heights of achievements in science, technology, and civilization. The Antikythera Mechanism, an astronomical computer probably crafted in Rhodes in the second century BCE, was proof of that prowess. It's the grandfather of our computers. Greek sponge divers discovered the Antikythera Mechanism in 1900 on a 2,100-year-old Roman-era shipwreck. The hand-powered device reveals a sophisticated Greek technology previously unknown to scholars and historians, not seen and understood again until th...

Postures and Movement Patterns of the Human Hand

A Framework for Understanding Hand Activity for Clinicians and Engineers

by Noriko Kamakura, Foreword by Catherine A. Trombly Latham

2022

Think of the complexity of ordinary hand activity and how to describe it all, both precisely and concisely. The author, a noted occupational therapist in Japan, offers a disciplined approach to doing just that. Whereas research has heretofore been limited mainly to how the hand grips, the methodology here is set up to account for grips, non-grip postures, and movement patterns, based on thousands of laboratory observations. This approach can provide hand experts with specific ways to conceptualize and study hand disabilities, artificial hands, and robotic hands. The author first surveys research over the past 100 years on forms that the hand normally assumes, noting the preponderance of studies on hand grips, with less attention having been paid to what the hand looks like when in non-g...

Integrated Asset Management for Corridor Infrastructure

A Wider Asset Management Perspective for an Enhanced Level of Service

by Soliman Abu-Samra & Mahmoud Ahmed

2017

Integrated Asset Management is gradually becoming an appealing mechanism for undertaking the corridor infrastructure interventions in an efficient manner. Amplified financial pressure on governments, through steeply growing deficits, and the increasing expectations from the end-users for enhanced service levels urge the need for an effective approach that meets their expectations within the limited available resources. This book introduces an integrated asset management approach for proactively managing the cities' corridors effectively. The decision-making system is designed to analyze the roads and water networks integration benefits on the life-cycle costs, physical state/reliability, replacement value, and user costs. Stochastic and multivariate regression deterioration models are deve...

Fluid and Thermal Dynamics Answer Bank for Engineers

The Concise Guide with Formulas and Principles for Students and Professionals

by Ethirajan Rathakrishnan

2023

This book provides the essence of aerodynamics, fluid mechanics, experimental methods, gas dynamics, high enthalpy gas dynamics, helicopter aerodynamics, heat transfer, and thermodynamics, describing the underlying principles of these subjects before listing the set of multiple choice questions of each subject, which will prove to be useful for engineering students to comfortably face and win in the competitive examinations for engineering studies, engineering services, civil services, doctoral Degree program entrance and so on. This book will also be of value for those facing job interviews for academic positions in universities and research organizations or laboratories.

Fundamental Concepts and Functions of Passenger and Freight Transportation in Great Britain

by Mengqiu Cao and John Spurling

2022

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the fundamental concepts and function of transport, as well as covering a wide array of themes, including different modes of both passenger and freight transport, primarily using various case studies from Great Britain, accompanied by short narratives/stories. It is suitable not only for academics and students, but also for people working in the transport industry. This book is particularly useful for those who are interested in the broad subject of transport in general, within the field of social sciences, but may not have studied engineering, economics, statistics or mathematics.

Computer Aided State Estimation of Electric Power Networks

An Introduction to Data Attacks, Cloud Computing and Distribution System State Estimation

by Subramanian Srikrishna, Ganesan Sivarajan, Hariprasath Manoharan

2020

Computer Aided State Estimation of Electric Power Networks is a fundamental introduction to the topic of state estimation at an advanced textbook level for teaching a course at either the graduate or undergraduate level, as well as for Post Graduate students and Research Scholars who want to review of the latest techniques and best mathematical approaches for estimating the state of a general system. Theory as well as practice of Distribution System State Estimation (DSSE) is covered with imperative rigidity. The authors present the theory of state estimation clearly providing the right amount of essential information and linked reports in order to enable the researchers and graduate students to apply state estimation techniques across a variety of fields in power systems engineering. A pr...

Nanotechnology for Water Purification

by Tania Dey (editor)

2013

Nanotechnology is a highly inter- and multi- disciplinary application oriented research area. Not only does it find its use in nanomedicine, solar cells, sensor development and so on, but can also be effectively utilized to prevent water pollution. Nanostructured materials such as magnetic nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes, silver-impregnated cyclodextrin nanocomposites, nanostructured iron-zeolites, carbo-iron nanomaterials, photocatalytic titania nanoparticles, nanofiltration membranes and functionalized silica nanoparticles can be employed in water treatment to remove heavy metals, sediments, chemical effluents, charged particles, bacteria and other pathogens. This edited book comprises several review-style chapters written by world experts. The chapters are devoted to each of these nanot...

Proceedings of the Multi-Conference 2011

2nd International Conference on Signals, Systems & Automation (ICSSA 2011) & 1st International Conference on Intelligent Systems & Data Processing (ICISD 2011)

by Dr. Himanshu B. Soni and Dr. Apurva Shah (editors-in-chief)

2011

The International Conference on Signals, Systems and Automation (ICSSA 2011) aims to spread awareness in the research and academic community regarding cutting-edge technological advancements revolutionizing the world. The main emphasis of this conference is on dissemination of information, experience, and research results on the current topics of interest through in-depth discussions and participation of researchers from all over the world. The objective is to provide a platform to scientists, research scholars, and industrialists for interacting and exchanging ideas in a number of research areas. This will facilitate communication among researchers in different fields of Electronics and Communication Engineering. The International Conference on Intelligent System and Data Processing (I...

TCP/IP - The Ultimate Protocol Guide

Volume 2 - Applications, Access and Data Security

by Philip M. Miller

2009

The book provides a complete guide to the protocols that comprise the Internet Protocol Suite, more commonly referred to as TCP/IP. The work assumes no prior knowledge of TCP/IP and only a rudimentary understanding of LAN/WAN access methods. The book is split into a number of sections; the manner in which data is transported between systems, routing principles and protocols, applications and services, security, and Wide Area communications. Each section builds on the last in a tutorial manner and describes the protocols in detail so serving as a reference for students and networking professionals of all levels. Volume I - Data Delivery & Routing Section A: Introduction Section B: The Internet Protocol Section C: Reliable and Unreliable Data Delivery Section D: Quality of Service S...

The Chinese Space Programme in the Public Conversation about Space

by Andrew Thomas

2020

This study is the product of a long view of space exploration and the conversations about space in China. It locates the multiple conversations about space exploration and utilisation as they are in the Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC), within other conversations about space culture in the world. China is viewed by Western researchers though many lenses which are examined here critically. In previous studies, writers explain away China‘s space programme with the easy answers of a "Space Race" and a "China Threat", in which the space programme is seen as merely an example of global competition, or threat, but this thesis challenges those barriers to Western understanding of the Chinese public conversation of space culture. In this study, critical theory and an underlying epistemology within...

Engineering for Sustainable Development and Living

Preserving a Future for the Next Generation to Cherish

by Jacqueline A. Stagner & David S-K. Ting (editors)

2021

What can we do to preserve a future for the next generation to cherish? A potent answer is to exercise good stewardship in realizing more sustainable living and development. This volume brings together experts from around the world to disseminate the latest knowledge and research toward this end, i.e., engineering for more sustainable development and living. Let us learn from a living cell that utilizes inherited biological intelligence to organize its resources for current needs and future existence. We also have the responsibility to ensure universal access to electricity and increase the share of renewable energies. Cost effective hybrid renewable energy systems should also be considered and furthered. Advancing energy storage is a necessary striving for managing a future "toilet paper ...

Predicting the Admission Decision of a Participant to the School of Physical Education and Sports at Cukurova University by Using Different Machine Learning Methods Combined with Feature Selection

by Gozde Yigit Ozsert & Mehmet Fatih Akay (advisor)

2017

The purpose of this thesis is to develop new hybrid admission decision prediction models by using different machine learning methods including Support Vector Machines (SVM), Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), Radial Basis Function (RBF) Network, TreeBoost (TB) and K-Means Clustering (KMC) combined with feature selection algorithms to investigate the effect of the predictor variables on the admission decision of a candidate to the School of Physical Education and Sports at Cukurova University. Three feature selection algorithms including Relief-F, F-Score and Correlation-based Feature Selection (CFS) have been considered. Experiments have been conducted on the datasets, which contain data of participants who applied to the School in 2006 and 2007. The datasets have been randomly split into train...

Development of New Models Using Machine Learning Methods Combined with Different Time Lags for Network Traffic Forecasting

by Derman Akgol & Mehmet Fatih Akay (advisor)

2017

The purpose of this thesis is to forecast the amount of network traffic in Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) -based networks by using different time lags and various machine learning methods including Support Vector Machines (SVM), Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), Radial Basis Function (RBF) Neural Network, M5P (a decision tree with linear regression functions at the nodes), Random Forest (RF), Random Tree (RT), and Reduced Error Prunning Error (REPTree), and statistical regression methods including Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) and Holt-Winters and compare the performance of statistical and machine learning methods. Two different Internet Service Providers' (ISPs) traffic data have been utilized to build traffic forecasting models. The first 66% of the data sets has ...

Exploring Microorganisms

Recent Advances in Applied Microbiology

by Antonio Mendez-Vilas (ed.)

2018

Exploring Microorganisms: Recent Advances in Applied Microbiology, contains a selection of papers presented at the VII International Conference on Environmental, Industrial and Applied Microbiology - BioMicroWorld2017 (Madrid, Spain). This book offers the outcomes of completed and outgoing research works and experiences of several microbiology research groups across the world. The volume is divided into the following sections:* Agriculture, Soil, Forest Microbiology* Environmental, Marine, Aquatic Microbiology. Geomicrobiology* BBB - Biodeterioration, Biodegratation, Bioremediation* Microbiology of Food and Animal Feed* Industrial Microbiology* Microbial Production of High-Value Products: Drugs, Chemicals, Fuels, Electricity ...* Biotechnologically Relevant Enzymes and Proteins* Medical,...

Vision-based Robot Navigation

Quest for Intelligent Approaches Using a Sparse Distributed Memory

by Mateus Mendes, A. Paulo Coimbra, & Manuel M. Crisostomo

2012

Starting with a summary of the history of Artificial Intelligence, this book makes the bridge to the modern debate on the definition of Intelligence and the path to building Intelligent Machines. Since the definition of Intelligence is itself subject to open debate, the quest for Intelligent machines is pursuing a moving target. Apparently, intelligent behaviour is, to a great extent, the result of using a sophisticated associative memory, more than the result of heavy processing. The book describes theories on how the brain works, associative memory models and how a particular model - the Sparse Distributed Memory (SDM) - can be used to navigate a robot based on visual memories. Other robot navigation methods are also comprehensively revised and compared to the method proposed. The per...

The Mechanical Pencil

Concepts in Distance Education

by Luke Strongman

2013

The purpose of this book is to define and explain concepts in distance learning academia. The intended audience are students, faculty, staff and managers at tertiary education organizations. The ten chapters elucidate factors, concepts and trends which increasingly effect the academic environment of distance learning, such as:

-creativity
-communication practices
-culture, identity and equity
-academic freedom
-goodstudy habits
-ethics
-OpenEducational Resources (OER)
-networking
-Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET).

Fundamental Building Materials

Fourth Edition

by Ken Ward-Harvey

2009

Written by an architect with many years' experience in practice and teaching, this book is a well-illustrated introduction to the great range of materials used in much of the world's building and construction. It is the only book of its type on the market, and suitable for anyone teaching or studying for building trades, architecture, building, landscape design, structural engineering, and allied disciplines. When first published, a reviewer commented, "This book has filled a large gap in publications available to both students and the building professions."

The Fourth (2009) Edition is now available, incorporating many references to current standard codes, research, manufacturers, and other authoritative information on the internet, to expand content further if needed.

An Analysis of Regulatory Frameworks for Wireless Communications, Societal Concerns and Risk

The Case of Radio Frequency (RF) Allocation and Licensing

by Haim Mazar

2009

This thesis analyses how and why culture and geography influence the allocation and licensing of the radio frequency (RF) spectrum in different nations. Based on a broad comparative study of 235 countries, an inter-disciplinary approach is used to explore regulatory frameworks and attitudes toward risk. In addition, detailed case studies of the UK, France, the US and Ecuador provide deeper insights into the main contrasting regulatory styles. Three alternative sociological theories are used to analyse and explain the results for both the in-depth and broad brush studies. The Cultural Theory of Mary Douglas and co-workers is first used to categorise countries in terms of perceptual filters. The empirical findings indicate some countries to be apparently exceptional in their behaviour. Th...

Performance Evaluation of Vision Algorithms on FPGA

by Mahendra Gunathilaka Samarawickrama

2010

The modern FPGAs enable system designers to develop high-performance computing (HPC) applications with a large amount of parallelism. Real-time image processing is such a requirement that demands much more processing power than a conventional processor can deliver. In this research, we implemented software and hardware based architectures on FPGA to achieve real-time image processing. Furthermore, we benchmark and compare our implemented architectures with existing architectures. The operational structures of those systems consist of on-chip processors or custom vision coprocessors implemented in a parallel manner with efficient memory and bus architectures. The performance properties such as the accuracy, throughput and efficiency are measured and presented. According to results, FPGA ...

Visualization of Interface Metaphor for Software

An Engineering Approach

by Dinesh S. Katre

2011

This book presents a comprehensive process for visualization of interface metaphor for software. It is helpful in designing interactive user interfaces with magical super-affordances and definitive user experiences. As per the ancient Indian Vedic literature, metaphors are always conceived out of Vastu (entities having existence in our world). The visualization process given in the book shows how metaphorization could help in innovating highly experiential user interfaces, as one can create Avastu (non entities) by combining different objects and imaginative properties together. The main highlights of this process are selection and dissection of interface metaphor, pre-facto analysis, qualitative and quantitative evaluation, mapping between user and application domain lexicons, specialized...

Supersizing Science

On Building Large-Scale Research Projects in Biology

by Niki Vermeulen

2010

In recent years there has been a clear rise in scientific collaboration, as well as in studies on the subject. While most scholars examine disciplines traditionally known to be collaborative, such as physics and space research, this book focuses on biology. It investigates the growing collaboration in the life sciences, or the emergence of what is called 'big biology'. While the Human Genome Project is often presented as the first large-scale research project in biology, cooperation in the life sciences has a longer history. A comparison between centralised 'big physics' and 'big biology' reveals how the latter has a networked structure, which evolved in interaction with the integration of information and communication technologies. By concentrating on the construction of these networks, t...

The End of Project Overruns

Lean and Beyond for Engineering, Procurement and Construction

by Robert M. Patty & Michael A. Denton

2010

Applying the principles in this book unleashes ingenuity that achieves, solidifies and perpetuates a new performance culture of mutual benefit. In this culture, project teams will prepare their work in task packages and enable workflow necessary to leave inefficiency of time and resource, literally, no place to hide. Project examples will help teams implement the principles that shorten cycle times, eliminate error, improve quality and reduce costs to succeed in meeting project commitments. Emerging Lean enterprise relationships between clients, EPC contractors and their entire supply chain will advance what constitutes the new, market-differentiating performance of individuals, project teams and companies - justifying high levels of trust and inter-organizational efforts to improve. Clie...

Process Planning Optimization in Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems

by Farayi Musharavati

2010

Trends and perspectives in dynamic environments point towards a need for optimal operating levels in reconfigurable manufacturing activities. Central to the goal of meeting this need is the issue of appropriate techniques for manufacturing process planning optimization in reconfigurable manufacturing, i.e. (i) what decision making models and (ii) what computational techniques, provide an optimal manufacturing process planning solution in a multidimensional decision variables space? Conventional optimization techniques are not robust, hence; they are not suitable for handling multidimensional search spaces. On the other hand, process planning optimization for reconfigurable manufacturing is not amenable to classical modeling approaches due to the presence of complex system dynamics. Therefo...

Acquisition and Reproduction of Color Images

Colorimetric and Multispectral Approaches

by Jon Hardeberg

2001

The goal of the work reported in this dissertation is to develop methods for the acquisition and reproduction of high quality digital color images. To reach this goal it is necessary to understand and control the way in which the different devices involved in the entire color imaging chain treat colors. Therefore we addressed the problem of colorimetric characterization of scanners and printers, providing efficient and colorimetrically accurate means of conversion between a device-independent color space such as the CIELAB space, and the device-dependent color spaces of a scanner and a printer. First, we propose a new method for the colorimetric characterization of color scanners. It consists of applying a non-linear correction to the scanner RGB values followed by a 3rd order 3D polynom...

Implicity of Electronic Contract Formation

With Reference to Email and Website

by Taimur Inayat Malik

2011

This research is conducted with an intention to have an overview of the contracts made online, what possible difficulties can arise within such commercial transactions and to assist readers upon the legal ambiance which environs it.

Fuelling the Future

Advances in Science and Technologies for Energy Generation, Transmission and Storage

by A. Mendez-Vilas (editor)

2012

Fuelling the Future offers the latest research results in materials, processes and systems involved in energy generation, transmission-distribution and storage as they were presented by active researchers in the field at the Energy and Materials Research Conference (Spain, June 2012). In our current situation, where the world's energy system is likely to radically change in the next several decades, research into these technologies has become a critical aspect in the development of cleaner and more efficient energy. Readers will find a major collection of knowledge, approaches, methods and discussions on the latest advances and challenges in materials for energy generation. The topics covered in this single volume include energy from biomass- biofuels, solar energy, fuel cells, hydrogen...

The ALISA Shape Module

Adaptive Shape Recognition using a Radial Feature Token

by Glenn C. Becker

2002

Shape classification is a challenging image processing problem because shapes can occur in any position, at any orientation, and at any scale in an image. Shapes can also be obscured by gaps in their boundaries, occlusions, and noise. General shape classifiers often suffer from low precision, and specialized shape classifiers rely on specific features, like vertices or connected boundaries, making them difficult to generalize. The objective of this research is to design, implement, and test a general, high-precision two-dimensional shape classifier that is invariant to translation, scale, and rotation, as well as robust to gaps in the shape boundary, occlusions, and noise. To achieve this objective, the radial feature token (RFT) is implemented as the ALISA Shape Module, which learns to cl...

Conjugate Gaze Adjustive Technique

An Introduction to Innovative Chiropractic Theory and Practice

by Vincent L. Perri

2001

Dr. Perri demonstrates how eye movements and patient-assisted postures can be used to correct vertebral subluxations, somatovisceral and viscerosomatic abnormalities. The text fully demonstrates the techniques and discusses the neurological pathways activated in the applications. He fully explains how visual fields and cerebral hemispheres are linked and how this information can be applied chiropractically. Chapters include information on patterning specific chiropractic adjustments for long-term corrections using 4 different types of neuromuscular retraining. Dr. Perri demonstrates how to monitor vasomotor mirror activity during viscerosomatic corrections, and discusses DeJarnette's CMRT profiles in the context of the Conjugate Gaze Adjustive Technique. A special chapter includes how to ...

Oracle DBA 101

A Beginner’s Guide

by Rao R. Uppaluri

2000

There is a dearth of Oracle Database Administrators inspite of having a large number of Oracle Programmers/Analysts. It is not difficult to rationalise the reason for this. Oracle Database Administration (DBA) is relatively harder to grasp and the concepts are subtle. There are a handful of books, all exhaustive treatises, on this topic, in addition to those by Oracle Corporation. There are no elementary books to smoothly introduce this fascinating topic. The present book, "Oracle DBA 101: A Beginner’s Guide" is expected to fill this vital gap. At the beginner’s level, it deals with all important aspects of Oracle DBA in a simplified manner. This is a Teacher’s as well as Student’s tool for an introductory course on the topic.

Online Distance Education

Historical Perspective and Practical Application

by Margaret Gorts Morabito

1999

Many educators and the public are interested in online distance education, in particular Internet-based schooling. The underlying assumption is that this is a new and untested fad in education. This is due in part to a lack of documentation within academia of the early development of online distance education, and, in part, to a shortage of experienced, practicing online schools. On the Internet, one may become confused by the flurry of activity and by the various claims from organizations that they are providing a revolutionary method of instruction--online teaching. Furthermore, many people are unaware of the long and distinguished history of distance education itself that is the root of current day Internet-based schooling. Despite the uncertainty, the public is clearly demanding o...

2020 Web Vision

How the Internet will Revolutionize Future Homes, Business and Society

by Robert D. Oberst

2001

At the dawn of a new millennium, faith in technology soared following the successful eradication of the potentially paralyzing Y2K bug. Young dot-coms with little experience and possessing few assets other than a concept, flourished boasting market values in the millions and even billions of dollars. Then reality settled in as the market crashed and over a hundred dot-coms perished. The highflying NASDAQ dropped over 60% and the longest economic expansion teetered on the brink of recession. Despite the disconcerting scenario, this was not the demise of the Web, but merely the conclusion of its innocent childhood or the first stage of meteoric growth. After all, the Web was only 10 years old. There were still trillions of dollars worth of opportunities, as the more rigorous applicatio...

Electronic and Optical Properties of Semiconductors

A Study Based on the Empirical Tight Binding Model

by Lok C. Lew Yan Voon

1997

This study is a theoretical investigation of the electronic and optical properties of intrinsic semiconductors using the orthogonal empirical tight binding model. An analysis of the bulk properties of semiconductors with the zincblende, diamond and rocksalt structures has been carried out. We have extended the work of others to higher order in the interaction integrals and derived new parameter sets for certain semiconductors which better fit the experimental data over the Brillouin zone. The Hamiltonian of the heterostructures is built up layer by layer from the parameters of the bulk constituents. The second part of this work examines a number of applications of the theory. We present a new microscopic derivation of the intervalley deformation potentials within the tight bindin...

Public Health and Agricultural Biotechnology

A Review of the Legal, Ethical, and Scientific Controversies Presented by Genetically Altered Foods

by Mitchell Berger

2000

Genetically modified foods present numerous ethical, environmental, health and legal challenges. This report synthesizes information from many websites, scientific journals, newspapers and books that discuss the controversy surrounding genetically modified foods. The author has attempted to show that although the future applications of agrobiotechnology appear promising, the ways in which it is currently being used and regulated should be evaluated with a healthy degree of skepticism.

Distributed Programming in Ada with Protected Objects

by Pascal Ledru

1998

As distributed applications become more sophisticated, their implementation becomes more and more difficult. It is therefore important to study how to facilitate the implementation of efficient distributed applications. This thesis reviews the different classes of distributed languages and presents a new approach to develop efficient distributed programs using the Ada language. This approach is compared in detail with existing distributed programming languages, existing approaches to distributed Ada programs, and the Distributed Annex of the new revision of Ada language.

The DJ Aesthetic

A Look into the Philosophy and Technology That Enable the Disc Jockey

by Zack Hellman

2009

This thesis provides an examination of Disc Jockey (DJ) technology, technique, and aesthetics. The history of popular dance music is explored in an attempt to demonstrate the role that technology has played in the development and future of the DJ aesthetic. Criteria for evaluating and producing Disc Jockey Music Technology is pursued in order to define the fundamentals of dance music and the essence of an authentic DJ performance.

A Method and Software for Designing Viable Social Systems

by J. D. R. de Raadt

2001

This companion book to Redesign and Management of Communities in Crisis explains step-by-step a method to identify the primary factors threatening communities, to collect information about such factors, organise it, analyse it and design counteractions. It also includes hands-on tutorial exercises. The presentation is fully integrated with SmCube, a software package developed to analyse and design social systems. This has two benefits. Firstly, SmCube assists the systems designer apply the method. Secondly, SmCube is also a learning tool: it helps new users understand the multi-modal systems method and methodology. Used together, the two books and software provide excellent analytical and design tools for managers, community leaders and corporate planners. They may also be used as class m...

The Manufacture of High Temperature Superconducting Tapes and Films

by Kurt A. Richardson

1999

The phenomena of superconductivity has enormous industrial potential, but the penetration of superconductor-based products has, thus far, been slow. An indisputable fact is that there are prizes, and profits, for the teams that solve the critical problems in understanding and processing these complex materials. The continuous processing of superconducting tapes and wires is a necessary stage that will open up the industrial market to the designers of a diverse range of time and energy saving devices, particularly in ultra-fast computing and lossless power transmission. The aim of the research reported herein was to investigate the fabrication of superconducting tapes and films via two different processes, namely: the established PIT technique, and a less well known electrochemical route...

Communication of Information Technology Project Sponsors and Managers in Buyer-Seller Relationships

by Ralf Muller

2003

Communication is frequently identified in the literature as a major factor impacting Information Technology (IT) project failure. The importance of communication is amplified in buyer - seller relationships through the long-term impact of project failures on the future business of IT vendors with their customers.The formal communication between IT project sponsors from buyer firms and project managers from IT vendor firms within business to business markets is investigated through this study. Typical communication patterns between project sponsor and manager in high and low performing projects are identified. The antecedents of these patterns are assessed and the effectiveness of project sponsor - manager communication investigated. A multi-method approach is used with a quantitative analy...

Control of Sensory Perception for Discrete Event Systems

by Geir E. Hovland

1999

The problem of controlling sensory perception for use in discrete event feedback control systems is addressed in this thesis. The sensory perception controller (SPC) is formulated as a sequential Markov decision problem. The SPC has two main objectives; 1) to collect perceptual information to identify discrete events with high levels of confidence and 2) to keep the sensing costs low. Several event recognition techniques are available where each of the event recognisers produces confidence levels of recognised events. For a discrete event control system running in normal operation, the confidence levels are typically large and only a few event recognisers are needed. Then, as the event recognition becomes harder, the confidence levels will decrease and additional event recognisers are uti...

Displacement Mapping and Volume Rendering Graphics Hardware

by Michael C. Doggett

2002

This dissertation introduces new hardware architectures for more realistic surface rendering of three dimensional objects and the rendering of volumetric datasets. Surface rendering is dealt with in the first part of the dissertation where the architectures for displacement map rendering in hardware are proposed. This work represents the first to appear in scientific literature on displacement map hardware rendering. Where possible these architectures propose components that integrate into currently available pipelines and make use of existing units in those pipelines. Displacement map rendering in hardware is a desired feature currently under development by most graphics hardware vendors. The first architecture is scan-line based and works just before rasterization and the second adaptiv...

A Spare Capacity Planning Methodology for Wide Area Survivable Networks

by Adel A. Al-Rumaih

1999

In this dissertation, a new spare capacity planning methodology is proposed utilizing path restoration. The approach is based on forcing working flows/traffic which are on paths that are disjoint to share spare backup capacity. The algorithm for determining the spare capacity assignment is based on genetic algorithms and is capable of incorporating non-linear variables such as non-linear cost function and QoS variables into the objective and constraints. The proposed methodology applies to a wider range of fault scenarios than most of the current literature. It can tolerate link-failures, node-failures, and link-and-node failures. It consists of two stages: the first stage generates a set of network topologies that maximize the sharing between backup paths by forcing them to use a subse...

Determination of Concurrent Software Engineering Use in the United States

by David L. Richter

1999

Scope of Study: This dissertation summarizes the current use of concurrent software engineering (CSE) by information technology (IT) organizations in the United States and its effectiveness in improving software delivery time, quality, and cost. From a total population of 7,173 IT organizations, a one-third sample of 2,391 were surveyed. A net valid response of 142 organizations was received, which represents a valid return rate of 6.2 percent. The responses were then analyzed against software development time, quality, and cost metrics according to the software development methodologies used. Findings and Conclusions: This study shows the extent to which pure CSE and CSE in combination with the traditional system development life cycle (SDLC) are used in the United States. There are...

Photoinduced Intramolecular Charge Transfer in Donor-Acceptor Biaryls and Resulting Applicational Aspects Regarding Fluorescent Probes and Solar Energy Conversion

by Michael Maus

1998

This study is focused on the effects of photoinduced intramolecular charge transfer (CT) in three differently twisted donor-acceptor (D-A) biphenyls. Taking into account a further pair of differently twisted D-A biaryls new universal insights into the photoinduced electronic and conformation dynamics of D-A biaryls are obtained. Furthermore, possible applications in fields of solar energy conversion and fluorescence sensing of microenvironments are demonstrated. Experimental means of stationary and time-resolved (ps to s) luminescence, transient absorption (sub-ps), polarization spectroscopy, high pressure and low temperature techniques are employed in conjunction with quantum chemical calculations. Twist angle and solvent dependent electron transfer (ET) interactions between the D and A...

A Reactive Approach to Comprehensive Global Garbage Detection

by Sylvain R Y Louboutin

1999

Comprehensive global garbage detection (GGD) in object-oriented distributed systems, i.e., GGD intrinsically able to detect distributed cycles of garbage, has mostly been addressed via graph tracing algorithms. Graph tracing algorithms must account for every live object in the system before any resource can actually be reclaimed which compromises both their scalability and robustness in a distributed environment. Alternative non-comprehensive approaches trade-off comprehensiveness for scalability and robustness under the assumptions that distributed cycles of garbage are rare and that all comprehensive algorithms are necessarily unscalable. This thesis contends instead that distributed cycles of garbage are as likely to occur as local cycles and that a comprehensive alternative to g...

On Perl

Perl for Students and Professionals

by Jugal K. Kalita

2004

The book has an introductory chapter that gets the reader started quickly with programming in Perl. The initial part of the book discusses Perl expressions, statements, control flow, built-in data types such as arrays and hashes, and complex data structures built using references. The chapter on regular expressions is exemplary with about fifty well-motivated example programs that make this useful topic particularly accessible. The book has an excellent chapter on modules and object-oriented programming. On Perl has several chapters covering specialized topics. The chapter on socket-based network programming deals with forking and using fork to write complex interactive client-server programs. There is a chapter with in-depth discussion of CGI programming including error-ha...